Sometimes one has a few leeks, a half cauliflower, a handful each of peas and beans. Instead of currying these vegetables (which removes all distinctive flavor from them) cook them gently, and toss them when cold in a good salad dressing. If you can give the yolk of an egg to it, so much the better. Any cold meat is improved by a side dish of this sort. The vegetables that one can curry with advantage are large marrows, cut into cubes, turnips, potatoes, parsnips. [Marguerite Leblanc.]
Take one quart of cider vinegar, put into it half an ounce of celery seed, one-third of an ounce of dried mint, one-third of an ounce of dried parsley, one garlic, three small onions, three whole cloves, a teaspoonful of whole pepper-corns, a teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, salt to taste and a tablespoonful of sugar; add a tablespoonful of good brandy. Put all into a jar, and cover it well; let it stand for three weeks, then strain and bottle it well. Useful for flavoring salad and other dishes.
A spoonful of green parsley, chopped fine with a knife; six potatoes, half of a small turnip, half of a carrot, one small beet. Cut the potatoes in small slices, the beet a little finer, and the turnip and carrot very fine. Mix all thoroughly. Sprinkle with a scant teaspoonful of salt--unless the vegetables were salted in cooking, and add the whole French dressing, or half a cupful of the boiled dressing. Keep very cool until served.
Four hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped; one head of lettuce, or one pint of water cresses; a large bunch of nasturtium blossoms or buttercups, the French dressing, with the addition of one teaspoonful of sugar. Wash the lettuce or cresses, and throw into ice water. When crisp, take out, and shake out all the water. Cut or tear in pieces. Put a layer in the bowl, with here and there a flower, and sprinkle in half of the egg and half the dressing. Repeat this. Arrange the flowers in a wreath, and put a few in the centre. Serve immediately.
6 eggs 1 head of lettuce 1 pimiento 1 teaspoonful of onion juice 1/2 teaspoonful of paprika 1/2 cupful of chopped boiled tongue 1 saltspoonful of salt 1 saltspoonful of pepper
Hard-boil the eggs, throw them into cold water, remove the shells, cut them lengthwise. Take out the yolks without breaking the whites. Rub the yolks through a sieve into a bowl, then add the tongue and all the seasoning. If the mixture is dry add a tablespoonful or two of cream or olive oil. Roll the mixture into balls that will fit the spaces from which they were taken in the whites, making each ball round. Arrange the lettuce over a platter, stand the whites in the lettuce, and at serving time baste thoroughly with French dressing.
2 tablespoons flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg 1/8 teaspoon cayenne 2 tablespoons granulated gelatine, plus 2 tablespoons cold water 1 teaspoon mustard 1 teaspoon curry powder 3 tablespoons melted fat 1 cup milk 1/3 cup vinegar 2 cups cooked rice 2 tablespoons chopped olives
Mix dry ingredients, add egg and blend thoroughly. Add melted fat, milk and vinegar. Cook over hot water until thick as custard. Soften gelatine in cold water. Add to the hot dressing. When dissolved add rice and olives, place in mold and chill. Serve plain or with 1/2 cup French dressing.
Cut up the meat, lamb, veal, mutton, or fresh pork into pieces about two inches wide. Sprinkle on salt and pepper and put them aside. Then cut an equal number of pieces of bread about one-half inch thick, and a little bit bigger then the pieces of meat. Next cut pieces of ham, fat and lean, the same size as the pieces of meat, but double the number. Then take a skewer (or two if one is not sufficient), and put on it first a piece of bread, then a piece of ham, then a leaf of sage, then one of the pieces of meat, then another leaf of sage, then the ham, then the bread, and so on in this order, having always the meat between two leaves of sage, two slices of ham, and two pieces of bread. Coat everything well, and especially the bread, with olive-oil or melted butter, and then broil them over a hot fire for a good one-quarter of an hour, turning them constantly until they are colored a golden brown and are crisp. If preferred, these can be cooked in the oven. Put them on several wooden skewers, and lay them in a pan and cook until brown and crisp. Serve with lettuce salad.
Make one quart of aspic jelly. Set the plain border mould (see rice border, under Entries) in a pan with a little ice and water. Pour enough of the liquid jelly into the mould to make a layer half an inch deep. Let this get hard. When hard, decorate with cooked carrot and beet, and the white of a hard-boiled egg. These must all be cut in pretty shapes with the vegetable cutter, and arranged on the jelly. Very carefully add two table-spoonfuls of jelly, and let it harden. Fill with the remainder of the jelly, and set away to harden. At serving time put the mould for half a minute in a pan of warm water. Wipe it, and turn the jelly on a cold flat dish. Fill the centre with salad, boned fowl, or anything else you choose.
Thoroughly clean the fish; cut off the head or not, as preferred; cut out the backbone from the head to within two inches of the tail, and stuff with the following: Soak stale bread in water, squeeze dry; cut in pieces a large onion, fry in butter, chop fine; add the bread, two ounces of butter, salt, pepper and a little parsley or sage; heat through, and when taken off the fire, add the yolks of two well-beaten eggs; stuff the fish rather full, sew up with fine twine, and wrap with several coils of white tape. Rub the fish over slightly with butter; just cover the bottom of a baking pan with hot water, and place the fish in it, standing back upward, and bent in the form of an S. Serve with the following dressing: Reduce the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs to a smooth paste with two tablespoonfuls good salad oil; stir in half a teaspoon English mustard, and add pepper and vinegar to taste.
Any remains of smoked blue cod that may have been left from a meal make an excellent salad either with just a simple dressing of oil and vinegar and a lettuce, or with a mayonnaise or salad dressing. Follow the directions for fish salad, but do not put any salt, as the fish is usually salt enough.
